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Summary of 21 pages for the course Introduction to International Relations at School of Oriental and African Studies (Coursework material)

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  • June 7, 2021
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  • 2020/2021
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INTRODUCTION
A brief introduction to R2P: the problems affecting the principle of the
“Responsibility to Protect”.
The principle of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) substituted humanitarian intervention (HI)
discourses after the early 2000s (Bellamy, 2008: 621). The NATO-led bombing campaign over Kosovo
in 1998 against the government of Yugoslavia, deemed illegal and strongly condemned by the
international community, led to the rejection of HIs seen as the pretext for the actualization of
political-strategic interests and imperial ambitions (Rockler, 2001: 1-3). Perceived as the tool that
would effectively reiterate colonial practices justified in the name of humanitarianism, the narratives
surrounding humanitarian interventions were successfully reframed through the concept of R2P: a
cunning idea devised to restore the legitimacy that HIs lacked after 1998 (Bellamy, 2008: 618-619).

It was the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) set up by the
Canadian Government in 2001 to reconceptualize the notion of “humanitarian intervention” (Hall,
2018: 174). The emergence of the principle of R2P was the outcome of the Commission’s efforts
directed at such a reformulation. However, the ICISS proposal lacked immediate and universal
support among the members of the international society (Hall, 2018: 175). An acceptable degree of
consensus was only reached in 2005 at the World Summit and only after considerable negotiation
(Bellamy, 2008: 626). The principle of R2P was then internationally confirmed in 2006 and
institutionalised within the UN and international law. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s
“three pillars” structure effectively summarized the main concepts of the universally endorsed
principle in 2009 (Hall, 2018: 176; Stark, 2011: 4).

However, following the military intervention of 2011 in Libya, the legitimacy and legality of R2P were
once again eroded, and so was the international consensus achieved in the mid-2000s (Ralph and
Gallagher, 2015: 566). The consequences of the lack of legitimacy on R2P were rendered clear in
Syria, where the civil crisis that erupted soon after that of Libya, exemplified the paralysis that had
started to affect the international community on issues of intervention (Ralph and Gallagher, 2015:
569). Fear of neo-colonial practices, and a resurrected scepticism now directed towards R2P,
contributed to the formation of political disagreement on international responses to humanitarian
emergencies, which negatively impacted the quality and the timing of the organization required for
“timely and decisive interventions” (Kabau, 2012: 58).

Overall, the rejection of R2P at the international level was the consequence of the lack of legitimacy
that affected the principle after 2011 (Paris, 2014: 570). It can then be claimed that its rejection was
a “matter of lack of legitimacy” that led to the erosion of the international consensus first secured
around the globally accepted norm of the responsibility to protect (Ralph and Gallagher, 2015: 566-
569). Such legitimacy of R2P was undermined in 2011 in several respects: namely, (a) through the
procedural unfairness that characterized the intervention in Libya, as demonstrated by subsequent
African reactions (Dembinski, 2017: 820-821); (b) the disrespect of internationally accepted
principles of state sovereignty, and non-intervention, which particularly undermined China’s support
for R2P (Barelli, 2018: 196); and finally, (c) the abuse of “human rights” discourses, that effectively
alienated the international community (Ayoob, 2002: 83-86). These factors contributed to the
disintegration of legitimacy and legality of R2P, and to the deterioration of the international
consensus around it.

However, the lack of legitimacy that started affecting R2P after 2011 is regarded in the paper as
being the superficial, more direct cause of the dissolution of consensus on the normative principle. It

,is claimed that the indirect and more hidden cause of such corrosion is to be found in the ways that
allowed the disregard and distortion of the internationally accepted norm of R2P.

The paper argues that it is how the norm had been reinterpreted at the domestic level, that allowed
for its “misuse”. It is argued that the process of institutionalisation of global norms at the state level
via systems of “norm localisation” does not transcend domestic interests and social-normative-
political contexts (Vaughn and Dunne, 2015:30-33). The universally accepted norm is codified
differently at the state level, and hence, also implemented differently according to states’ own
reinterpretation. It follows that clear issues of implementation at the international level arise. This
was exactly the case of Libya where the use of R2P was deemed to be the “misrepresentation” of the
principle by Western countries, and particularly by the US, that ultimately led to the erosion of the
principle’s legitimacy, as exemplified by the international community’s behaviour in Syria in 2012
(Crush, 2013: 7).

Two main arguments are proposed to tackle such issues of normative application affecting norms in
general and R2P in particular. First, the establishment of specific criteria about how to implement
global norms is suggested in order to achieve an international standard of practices (Getachew,
2019: 227-228). Second, the reinterpretation of the very norm of R2P is beneficial to restore R2P’s
legitimacy tackling the problem of the lack of consensus affecting R2P today (Lafont, 2015: 72-75).

However, to limit scrutiny to problems of “implementation and interpretation” due to norms’
localisation, would mean that “the very principle of R2P would ultimately escape critical scrutiny”
(Getachew, 2019: 228). Therefore, the paper argues that to restore legitimacy on R2P, a
reconceptualization of R2P per se is necessary. It claims that R2P would benefit from shifting the
narrative from a post-Westphalian account of “sovereignty as responsibility” to the anti-colonial
Westphalian account devised during the period of decolonization by anti-colonial nationalists who
conceived “sovereignty as autonomy, equality, and non-intervention” (Getachew, 2019:233-236).
Such a reconceptualization of the very idea behind the principle of R2P would address not only
issues around its normative application but also, the very causes that have led to the erosion of
R2P’s legitimacy, namely the hierarchies present at both the institutional (within the UN) and
international level (within the global order) (Reus-Smit, 2005: 88). Hence, practices of norm
localisation are not the only obstacle that prevents the re-establishment of legitimacy and consensus
around R2P, but it is argued that the very principle undermines its own survival due to how the
concept of “sovereignty” is conceptualized today.

Outline
The paper will begin by presenting a foundational premise briefly illustrating the emergence of
human rights discourses and their inclusion in processes of norm diffusion later institutionalised at
the international level by global governance bodies. The tensions generated by notions of
humanitarian interventions in opposition to state sovereignty and autonomy led to the necessity of
redefining HIs, especially after Kosovo events in 1998 (Rockler, 2001: 1-3).

The analysis will then be structured in five main chapters. The first chapter will develop a discussion
around the historical development of R2P together with the gradual acceptance of the norm at the
international level. It will argue that the norm’s legitimacy and consensus achieved in 2005 were
then eroded in 2011 after Libya’s military intervention (Çubukçu, 2013: 47-50).

The second section will then focus on the concept of legitimacy and lack thereof as the direct cause
behind the deterioration of the principle’s legality at the global level. The paper will present three
main factors that make up for the formation of legitimacy, namely procedural fairness; the respect

, of international laws and globally institutionalised principles; and finally, the transparency and
accountability of the international community when intervening in the name of human rights. The
consistent and effective disregard of these three variables led to the erosion of R2P’s legitimacy after
2011, as exemplified by Africa’s, China’s, and India’s position on the principle (Dembinski, 2017:818-
822; Barelli, 2018: 196-197; Choedon, 2017: 441-446).

In the third section, it will be argued that the corrosion of R2P’s consensus on the international
sphere cannot be regarded exclusively as a matter of legitimacy, but instead, a second indirect cause
contributes to the scraping away of the principle, namely the process that Acharya defines “norm
localisation” (Acharya, 2004: 241-250). The analysis claims that the reinterpretation, internalisation,
and institutionalisation of internationally accepted global norms at the state level, lead to problems
of application (Getachew, 2019: 227-228). Given that norms like R2P are intrinsically abstract, and
that they often lack the specificity needed to reach an international standard of practices on how to
implement international laws at the local level (Sandholtz, 2008: 105-106), the paper argues that the
process of “norm localisation” contributed to the “misuse” of R2P in Libya, and in turn, to the
erosion of R2P’s legitimacy and consensus.

In chapter 4, the paper will elaborate on the argument, to find that if on one hand, the process of
localizing international norms is to be held accountable for the lack of legitimacy on R2P today, on
the other hand, it is not the only obstacle that R2P faces. On the contrary, to limit the analysis to a
matter of normative application means that the very principle of R2P successfully escapes critical
scrutiny (Getachew, 2019: 228). Instead, a second challenge is to be found in the idea of R2P itself as
based on the notion of “sovereignty as responsibility” (Ayoob, 2002: 84; Getachew, 2019: 229). It is
argued that such a conception of sovereignty reduces its normative significance to the imperial
mechanisms of instrumentalism, paternalism, and conditionality (Getachew, 2019: 229-232). Hence,
changing the very basis on which the principle is built is key to defend the future of R2P and restore
its legitimacy. Therefore, the essay concludes by clarifying that norm localization is not the only
obstacle to the survival of R2P, but also the very principle as conceived today is undermining its own
existence.

The paper will then add some conclusive remarks in order to reinforce the argument that, despite
such obstacles, R2P can survive. Three main reasons are offered to sustain such a conclusive
approach. First, the non-Western origins of the norm of R2P facilitate the acceptance of the principle
at the international level, especially because the arguments against R2P, which are based on notions
of “neo-imperialism and cultural relativism”, can be successfully discarded once the principle’s
origins are taken into consideration, and once the necessary substantive revision and procedural
reforms on R2P’s implementation are undertaken globally (Stefan, 2016: 94; Getachew, 2019: 227).
Second, the fact that the rejection of HIs in 1998 was overcome through the reformulation of the
humanitarian intervention discourses leads to thinking that the rejection of R2P after 2011 can be
overcome in the same way, namely through the reformulation of R2P. Lafont offers an interpretative
choice that is useful to consider as it could contribute to these redefinition efforts. However, the
very idea of “sovereignty as responsibility” needs to be revised as well. A simple redefinition of R2P
will not be enough this time, as it was for humanitarian intervention discourses in 1998 successfully
reframed by the ICISS with the concept of R2P. This time a reinterpretation of the rejected principle
will also need to incur into a change of the very idea on which the norm is based upon, namely the
idea of “sovereignty as responsibility” (Ayoob, 2002: 84). This would allow R2P to escape the
problem that affects and reduces sovereignty’s normative significance. Finally, the paper will present
two revisionary efforts undertaken by Brazil and China with the aim of shaping the principle of R2P in
order to increase its legitimacy.

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